There were no Ali G-style outbursts this year. Lewis Hamilton 2012 is a
different creature from the 2011 version; more relaxed, more self-possessed.
It is just as well. Had last year’s model been around he would undoubtedly
have started lashing out by now.

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Tough to take: Lewis Hamilton endured a difficult weekend on the streets of MonacoPhoto: EPA

He might not have won Sunday's dash for cash around the millionaire’s playground of Monaco — Mark Webber drove a flawless race from pole to claim Formula One’s most prestigious crown for a second time — but yet more mistakes from his McLaren team cost him valuable points in his quest for a second drivers’ title.

On Sunday the errors were more of the niggling kind — a change to his clutch settings which bogged him down off the start; a(nother) slow pit stop; the failure to communicate that he was in danger of being jumped by a rival. But they all add up.

Having started third, Hamilton could only finish fifth. He now lies fourth in the drivers’ championship, 13 points behind Fernando Alonso and his supposed dud of a Ferrari, and is still awaiting his first victory of 2012 despite taking three poles and making virtually no mistakes.

“I feel like I’m in the best place I’ve ever been,” the 27-year-old said after Sunday’s race. “I’m not making mistakes and it feels great. But we haven’t had a grand prix weekend where something hasn’t gone wrong.”

There is no need to panic just yet. It is incredibly tight at the top and with a different driver having won each of the opening six races for the first time in F1 history, no one is exactly running away with it.

But when you consider that the 2007 and 2008 championships were settled by a solitary point, you fear for what it might cost Hamilton eventually.

Still, at least he is not Jenson Button. Hamilton’s team mate started 12th, got off to a poor start, stayed out for ages hoping it might rain and then retired from 15th position trying to overtake the not-so-mighty Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen.

Button has now scored just two points in his last three races and admits he hasn’t the foggiest what is going on. “It’s my leanest period since the old Honda days but ---- happens,” he said. “We are still learning.”

Button’s mood matched the dark clouds and rain falling outside McLaren’s paddock home but the day had started so positively.

Blue skies and sunshine greeted race fans as they converged on Monaco’s famous harbour for the start of the race. The champagne was flowing and the celebrity count seemed up on last year.

Hamilton had his own A-list entourage. After waving goodbye to his Pussycat Dolls singer girlfriend, Nicole Scherzinger, he ventured to the grid where Hollywood actor Will Smith, a guest of McLaren’s over the weekend, joined him.

He was more than hopeful at that point of becoming the Fresh Prince of Monte Carlo for a second time, following that memorable win in his world title-winning season of 2008.

Hamilton said he had studied previous Monaco races and noticed that the person starting third often picked off the person in second by turn one. “My plan was to jump [Nico] Rosberg and challenge [Webber] for the lead,” he said.

Instead, a change to his clutch settings on the formation lap saw him get bogged down. “I took the team’s advice — I have to rely on them — and let the clutch out and it just didn’t go. There was no torque, no drive. I said to them afterwards ‘we can’t have everyone else making great starts and us not’. I was lucky not to lose third.”

Worse was to come. After a sluggish stop on lap 29, far slower than the Red Bulls and Ferraris, he lost third place to Alonso. In truth, that was more down to the fact that the Ferrari was much quicker than the McLaren and Alonso, who stopped one lap later, simply drove away from him.

But he felt he could certainly have avoided losing fourth spot to Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, who waited until lap 46 to make his pit stop as Webber backed up the traffic for him.

The German emerged just half a second ahead of Hamilton, who was promptly on the radio asking why he hadn’t been alerted to the fact that Vettel had been primed to overtake him.

Thereafter, as is so often the way in Monaco, the race developed into something of a procession. Only the rain, which fell intermittently, threatened to spice things up.

The top-six cars were separated by six seconds by the end, but no one risked a passing move around Monaco’s famously tight, twisting track.

In truth, it wasn’t a classic but it remains an enthralling season. A sixth winner in six races, which Webber celebrated with the now traditional leap into Red Bull’s pool on their floating Energy Station before bundling Sky’s Martin Brundle in as well.

But it’s Alonso who leads. “He is the dark horse and he’s driving for the dark horse,” Hamilton remarked. “I’m not surprised. He is a two-time world champion and probably the best driver here.

"As for us we just have to hope we have a weekend where nothing goes wrong.”